Internet post RPing - does anyone else do this?

kage_rod

I'm just curious because I've been working on getting more roleplaying partners, and it seems like a never-ending battle. I have to go through Gaia Online, and it seems like either they're elitests or 15 years old.. The rest of the internet is filled with group RPs where people don't even post at all.
Does anyone else role play and have this problem?

Apreche

If you want to role play, online is fail. I have heard stories of people getting good stuff going, but they are rare. They are so rare as to be effectively non-existent. Personally, I think role playing online is stupid and pointless. Perhaps if you had some sort of group video/audio chat, but then only if all the players were extremely reliable with their scheduling. Otherwise, I say role-playing that isn't in-person isn't worth it. It takes less effort to find a bunch of local people to play than it does to setup a quality online game.

Rym

I had a lot of good experiences roleplaying online many years ago. I haven't tried in many years, so I can't say for sure what it's like out there now.

Norvu

I ran a small forum-based role play that was about zombies, had some basic rules but it was mostly just co-operative story telling. It was fun though, I created all types of different "zombies" (alien virus rather than supernatural zombies) through photoshop, I'll try and find some of the old images I made.

kage_rod

Well, I do one on one through email or IMs.. So it's not as bad as group RPs.

In real life, I have a few RPing friends, but I'm so bored with the same old plot that they do again and again.

...For some reason I can't see you, Rym, sitting at a computer tapping away for an RP. x3

Funfetus

I was involved in a play-by-post game for a few months that was pretty fun, although really, really slow. It eventually just sorta slowed down to the point of practically stopping, and I dropped out. I think you have to get a group of people who are really committed to it to make it work.

Maybe playing on Skype would work better?

thaneofcawdor

I'm in an email-based game right now. There are some really good players, but it's a sloooooow game. Out of the five or so email games I've been involved in, including one I ran (epic fail), only one would count as an unqualified success. The rest just slowly died.

Oh, and if anyone ever wants to start a Skype game of Burning Wheel, I'd be up for it in a big way (schedule permitting).

Sail

I had a lot of good experiences roleplaying online many years ago. I haven't tried in many years, so I can't say for sure what it's like out there now.

Mosquitoboy

Oh, and if anyone ever wants to start a Skype game of Burning Wheel, I'd be up for it in a big way (schedule permitting).

I'm in.

I used to Rp on Gaia until I grew up and Gaia didn't. I mean the Rps were ok, but they either died off or were full of kids who couldn't lose.

RyienKu

I used to be big into the chat roleplaying. Originally started out with message board roleplaying on a DBZ board of some sort (Planet Namek, maybe?). Then moved on the AIM/chat stuff for Star Trek.

Mostly did them because it calmed my creative urges to write before I really knew I had them. Now, I credit them a lot to getting me started.

misakyra

I joined a couple at one at one point, but I ended up getting writers' block and lost interest shortly after. It's something that I think works better if you start it with people you know offline, or people you've known online for a long time.

That said, I'd still like to get into one. The problem is that my schedule, while it's great for me, doesn't always work well with anyone else's.

Victor Frost

Back when I had an anime forum, we did RPG's all the time. It was great fun, mostly because, of the 5000 or so members, a good half of them were into RPG-ing, so there were a bunch of them going at any given time. Albeit, this was many years ago, so the writing quality wasn't that good, but it was all good fun.

I'd be very interested in getting into that once again.

Wings

I've been RPing since I was 8 years old. I started off on a pretty medium sized pokemon based forum that has died out long since, that I'm sure I was a complete and total noob on. I was in big RPs with 30 or so people, I was in little RPs, where I was one of only three, and I even started my own, though they didnt turn out too well. I've RPed many places since, from Random Forum A to Gaia to some shitty chat client over in east bum fuck. The best results I've found are RPing in small groups, usually one on one, over an IM client. The trick with two people is that eventually the plot gets dull, and you have to abandon it for a while... A friend and I have one extensive Harry Potter based RP that has about a million different settings, that I hope to god stays discontinued forever. We also have one original RP that we hope to continue in AU sometime, RP we hope to continue sometime, the RP were working on that we hope to time skip 10 years into soon, and another one that needs to die in a fire- Nobody needs that much Mpreg, My GOD.

I'd say your best bet is to find a good partner. I myself just spent three days on a bus, and let me tell you, that notebook has words in it now. Lots of them.

Eryn

If you want to role play, online is fail. I have heard stories of people getting good stuff going, but they are rare. They are so rare as to be effectively non-existent. Personally, I think role playing online is stupid and pointless. Perhaps if you had some sort of group video/audio chat, but then only if all the players were extremely reliable with their scheduling. Otherwise, I say role-playing that isn't in-person isn't worth it. It takes less effort to find a bunch of local people to play than it does to setup a quality online game.

As I said back in the other thread about this topic, that depends on what you mean by online roleplaying. In the case of online versions of tabletop RPGs, then you are absolutely right: it isn't worth it. However, games based entirely on writing prose (no formal numbers-based rules for stats or combat) can go either way. A lot of them are run by stupid kids and either die quickly or get stupid, but there are a great number of them that are quite successful, engrossing, and well-constructed, and they fulfill a different niche than tabletop roleplaying does (namely the desire for collaborative writing as opposed to collaborative improv and/or dungeon crawling). A great example of a worthwhile PBP game is Landel's Damned, which has been popular and active for a few years now and upholds fairly high standards for writing and characterization.

Anyway, kage_rod, it's funny you should bring up this topic. A lot of my spare time has been put into a particular game that I love as of late, Vicious Cycle, and I have recently applied for two others in my desire to RP more (one of which is Landel's). The only problem with VC currently is scheduling conflicts. Several of the players are busy with real life things right now, and as such, the pace is slower and more erratic than it was a little while ago. So yes, I empathize with your frustration on that front. *sigh* Oh well, a few of us are still active and continuing to post at a good rate. We're hoping that getting more players on board will help. *pokepoke*

I wish you could join Landel's as well, but unfortunately, applications just closed and won't be open again for three more months. It seems like exactly the sort of game you're looking for in terms of activity and lack of stupid people. I'm sure that there are other games of that calibre out there, though. LiveJournal seems to be home to a lot of good games, so maybe you can go looking for games there.

Norvu

Here are some of the images from my zombie role play (ZiCE = Zombies infection control and eradication). Excuse the poor English, done these a long time ago before I really kicked myself to learn English grammar and spelling properly.






The whole idea was that the virus affected that single part of the brain that controls hunger, emotion and sexual desire causing people to become insanely hungry, horny and angry! As a result they would only attack or feed on things that bore a resemblance to what a human should look like (male or female, only has to look a little human) and as a result they wouldn't attack each other or animals. It affected the Canines differently, for absolutely no reason other than a plot device =P

kage_rod

In the case of online versions of tabletop RPGs, then you are absolutely right: it isn't worth it. However, games based entirely on writing prose (no formal numbers-based rules for stats or combat) can go either way. A lot of them are run by stupid kids and either get die quickly or get stupid, but there are a great number of them that are quite successful, engrossing, and well-constructed, and they fulfill a different niche than tabletop roleplaying does (namely the desire for collaborative writing as opposed to collaborative improv and/or dungeon crawling).

Well, that's what D&D; is for. Most of what I'm doing is pure role playing and a very little bit of give-and-take fighting. Lately, especially, I've been craving full RPs because both of my groups are all male asides from me, and while a few can handle RPing, most get bored by RPing and rather roll dice.

Actually, currently, I have 2 IM RPs and a bunch through Gaia PMs that are all going fairly well, although I twitch a bit at one's inability to use the proper "your". ^_^ All of them are one on ones, but I'm looking at trying out one Gaia group and maybe Eryn's forum.